Motivational one-on-one with Student Minister Nuri Muhammad: “I love what I do, and I love who I am doing it for.”

Estimated reading time: 22 minute(s)

Brother Jesse Muhammad (BJ): Let’s delve a little bit into the book, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews Vol. 2. What did you gain from reading that book? And why do you agree that this should be mandatory reading inside of the schools of America?

Nuri Muhammad (NM): When I am on the road I take a lot of books with me. You know Volume 1 is blue and Volume 2 is red. I always hold them up at the end of a meeting and I tell everybody, “In this case brothers and sisters, if you take the red or the blue pill you are going to be alright.” It’s a book that will open your eyes up and bring you into the why. In English they say that if you want to know something you ask what, when, where and how. But when you really want to understand something, then you have to ask the question why. 

The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews shows the who, how, when and where. Yet, it also shows something no other book has ever shown, and that is the why. This shows the class of Jews that were responsible for the slave trade, financing and enslavement. It shows them in the role of slave traders, slave makers and slave masters. The Minister described them as being the architects of White supremacy. Well architects make blueprints. If you have been exposed toThe Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews and the blueprint of White supremacy, now we know the strength and weaknesses of the system. If I were getting ready to come and get some hostages out of a building, just look at the movies, what is the first thing they try to do when they are trying to get some hostages that have been kidnapped? They want to find out does anyone have the blueprint to this building, because they plan on finding the best way to get in and get what they want and getting rid of their opposition. If anybody is getting ready to destroy a building, the first thing they do before they destroy it is get the blueprint. If they have the blueprint then they know exactly where to put their explosives to be able to bring that structure down completely. Well we desire to destroy White supremacy. We desire to go into a building and get our people who have been kidnapped and are being held hostage by White supremacy. Therefore, if we get from The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, the blueprint, then we can get the hostages and we can bring the structure down once and for all. 

BJ: I see that in one way that you bear witness is crisscrossing this country going to speak, which again is following the example of The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan who has been across the globe for over 56 years now teaching our people. What is the driving force that keeps you going? How are you able to strive and maintain that balance between being away from Indianapolis and being in these different cities?


NM: Well to give a simple text message answer, I would just put in all capital letters, L-O-V-E. I love what I do, and I love who I am doing it for. I love the Minister and I love my people and I love helping the greatest thing in creation which is a human being in the greatest way possible; which is to help the human mind. A labor of love is not really work. A labor of love is more recreation. That’s why if you look at the word recreation and re-creation they are both spelled the same way. If you are engaged in helping to re-create, then the one that is doing that is actually in a recreational spirit. The Ergonomists when they studied work and sport and work and play, found that work and play required the same stuff. In order for you to play you have to exert energy, you have to work through fatigue, you have to have team work, you have to work through pain. Similarly, to do a job you have to do the same thing, exert energy, work through fatigue, have team work and work through pain. The difference is when a person has in their mind that they are playing a sport or they are involved in recreation, they can do that for an unlimited amount of time. They don’t see recreational play as that which produces stress. They see it as something that relieves stress. Even though the same components are present, it’s just the mindset is different.

What happens whenever we do what The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said “Work cheerfully”? Working cheerfully means that we are turning what we do into sport or into play or into recreation. It’s a labor of love. When you do that it doesn’t require much energy from you and even if it does it doesn’t feel like that mentally, because you love what you are doing.

Back in the day we use to play basketball all day with just a couple of sips of water from the water hose. The sisters could double dutch and hop scotch all day with just a few sips of a sheer pop that they’d drink. Now the same brothers and sisters are constantly looking at their watches while they are working–can’t wait to get off. Well what happened? It’s just a mindset. Here in Indianapolis we have a school, daycare, restaurant, barber and beauty shop, plus the mosque. We have nine full time employees here at the mosque. In a year I have been to 40 cities and I have done over 200 lectures, so in the midst of all of that I still have energy. I don’t have a lot of time, but I have a lot of energy still left because everything that I am doing is out of love. It doesn’t zap me mentally. I may not administer the quantity of time in knowing people, but the quality of time becomes better because I’m motivated by the love. 

When I am home, if it’s just three hours in a week’s time that I am spending with my family, I put so much in it because I love them too. The other thing I would say is the Minister said in Closing the Gap that his formula for longevity when he was asked “how is it that you were able to keep this rigorous schedule for all these years likes this”, he said he kept a sense of humor. Then he said he loves what he is doing and he loves who he is doing it for. I have a saying that “God is my Goal, The Minister is my pattern, and The Bible and The Holy Qu’ran provide me with directions”. If he is saying what gave him longevity is a sense of humor and love, what he does and who he is doing it for, then basically love and laughter is that which gives you longevity. You’ve got to have fun in this, that’s my mindset. Work cheerfully means that you are having fun. I saw a man who had on a T-shirt at the gym the other day and the shirt said, “If you are not having fun, you are not doing it right.” 

BJ: Wonderful. I am always looking through the book, Dining with Minister Louis Farrakhan and Mother Khadijah Farrakhan- the book with the recipes. I always look at the small testimonies many people in The Nation and outside The Nation give of their experiences of dining with The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. I wanted to ask you to just share your first experience with The Minister at the dinner table and even times since then. For those that may sometimes pinpoint leaders and say that they may not be the same behind closed doors as they are in public. How is The Minister at the dinner table?